International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)

From Lebanon

The ILO, UNICEF, Save the Children and the Lebanese Ministry of Labour launch a first-ever study assessing the scope and characteristics of the increasingly visible phenomenon of one of the worst forms of child labour.

Poverty pushes a high number of children in Kosovo to drop out of school and enter child labour as early as 10 years old. The ILO supports efforts of Kosovo&amp;rsquo;s public institutions and social partners to eliminate child labour, with an emphasis on its worst forms.

Campaign

The global Initiative was launched in 2013 and calls on orchestras, choirs and musicians of all genres worldwide to dedicate one concert to the struggle against child labour. Sign up to the Manifesto and pledge to dedicate a concert!

The importance of employers in the worldwide movement against child labour has never been clearer. The corporate responsibility to respect human rights, including a child’s right to be free from child labour, is now widely recognized. Today, companies that don’t have a policy against child labour are outside the mainstream.

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For the second time, the ILO has produced global estimates of children in domestic work based on data from national household surveys.

Facts and figures

Global number of children in child labour has declined by one third since 2000, from 246 million to 168 million children. More than half of them, 85 million, are in hazardous work (down from 171 million in 2000).

Asia and the Pacific still has the largest numbers (almost 78 million or 9.3% of child population), but Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the region with the highest incidence of child labour (59 million, over 21%).

There are 13 million (8.8%) of children in child labour in Latin America and the Caribbean and in the Middle East and North Africa there are 9.2 million(8.4%).

Agriculture remains by far the most important sector where child labourers can be found (98 million, or 59%), but the problems are not negligible in services (54 million) and industry (12 million) – mostly in the informal economy.

Child labour among girls fell by 40% since 2000, compared to 25% for boys.

Just released

In recent years Uganda has seen only limited progress in reducing the rate of children’s employment. Whilst the country has seen important steps to promote free elementary and secondary education some major challenges remain. Uganda has experienced the highest rate of school drop- out in Africa and many young children leave school to go into the labour market. This policy brief uses information from a recent study to suggest steps which could be taken to better address child labour through education policies and programmes.

Over the past ten years Indonesia has made major progress in reducing the numbers of children in child labour. It has done so primarily by expanding education provision and enabling more children to attend and stay in school. The progress has been supported by the implementation of major social protection programmes providing support to poor families. However there remains a problem of child labour. This policy brief uses information from a recent study to suggest steps which could be taken to better address child labour through education policies and programmes.

Highlights

The ILO will participate in the III Global Conference on Child Labour which will bring together representatives from government, social partners, civil society, regional and international organizations to share policies and experiences in the global fight against child labour.

The Conference – organized by the Brazilian Government – will be an opportunity to reflect on the progress made since the previous global conference was held in The Hague in 2010, and to discuss ways to accelerate global efforts against child labour – especially its worst forms.